Symptomw

Is anyone else here hearing way too much about their friend's various symptoms?

Maybe it's just me, by my friends are driving me nuts. They call with lenghty descriptions of their sinuses and their urinary tracts and their digestive systems. The worst is the long winded descriptions of various bodily secretions.

T.M.I.!!

Call me insensitive, but I'm sick of hearing how many pills people are taking and I don't want to know if the dose has changed. I'm unconcerned about hot flashes and I don't want to know that anybody's husband has started on Viagra. I just don't care what is draining from their sinuses and I certainly don't want to know that they are urinating frequently or the color of their stools.

The last time I had a party, I discovered that my friends are all way too sick to have any fun. I was ready to get a hospital to cater the darned thing. The diabetics couldn't eat sweets, the alcoholics couldn't tolerate alcohol, the smokers wanted to smoke in my house, those with allergies couldn't tolerate smoke, the hypertensives couldn't eat fats, and those on diets (which was almost everyone) couldn't eat anything. It looked like the only way we could enjoy a meal together was to insert IV's.

If someone is seriously ill, I'm a willing listner, but surely there is something more interesting for perfectly healthy people to discuss than body parts.

smile

Smilin, I'm laughing outloud here. What a great post! Sounds like you hang out with a bunch of whiners who don't know how to be grateful for the good things in life. Oops, sorry. Don't mean to offend you. I guess I'm laughing because I often hear the very same things!

I remember when my mom's life started in this direction. Every single time she got off the phone we would hear who was sick, who was in the hospital, who had to go to the doctors. As the years wore on and we received calls from Mom we would continue to get the reports on everyone's health. Now my Dad gets the reports because she's on with a bigger and better lifestyle! I swear it dragged her down and it drags him down.

Your post is really making me think that we need to share the good news and give only teeny details about the dumb little illnesses in life. We all have them and unless it's soemthing grave, we should keep our mouths SHUT!

What a perfect time for a resolution.

I know what you mean about your parent's calls. My Mom calls at least weekly with the morbidity and mortality report. Mom's big on sickness and will go to the hospital to visit people she hardly knows. But she really specializes in funerals.

Not only does she describe in detail the floral arrangements, the music, the sermon, and what everyone wore, she reports how the deceased looked in the casket and she's a funeral food expert.

She'll take food to any life event, but she specialized in feeding the bereaved. It's where she and her friends test out new recipes. She gives a detailed report of who brought what and how it tasted and how it looked and who ate what and who liked it and what went untouched. It's a senior cooking class.

I guess I'm following in her footsteps. More and more I find myself taking food to dinners after funerals and the families of loved ones in the hospital.

I guess my life too will eventually become just one huge morbidity and mortality report.

[ January 04, 2004, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

I've noticed that those who constantly turn the conversation around to vivid details of their own health are looking for attention.

My mother-in-law is that way. She can't call and just chat w/us. She has to use the telephone call to give us lengthy reports on every tiny ailment she's encountered ...and those that are continuing.

She uses the e-mail for the same thing. We've gotten to the point that we "ignore the bad behavior" and "reward the good behavior" with positive comments when she talks about something other than her latest ailment.

When she's done w/her report, she then moves into reports about others. People I've never met, and people my husband says he only knew from a long time ago, or doesn't know at all.

Poor hubby has had to actually tell her more than one time that if she can't call with good news then we'd rather she didn't call. It was quite an upsetting conversation on both sides, but after not hearing from her for abour 2 weeks, she has made an effort to stop all the negativity.

Here's to success with your friends!

[ January 08, 2004, 06:37 PM: Message edited by: Vicki M. Taylor ]

Oh my gosh! I LOVED those reports. MY mother-in-law does the same thing. We were thinking about building her a computer so she could do email but now I'm rethinking that - we'd get to hear all about people we hardly know and all THEIR physical ailments and whose children actually get to town to visit and how all THEIR children are doing. It's so fun. (Not!)

Kate

you know...I agree one 100% on the fact that people who only talk about their pains, etc., are only looking for attention. Pretty sad actually.

I'm wondering if the woman who calls with all of the reports (and has a computer) could start a newsletter for all of her friends. She could do a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletter which she could mail out (or email out) to all of her friends, and that way her life could be full of something to do...a positive purpose?

She could maybe find someone who would print them out for her (if she doesn't have a printer) and she could leave the copies at church, grocery store, delivery them to the individual mailboxes/homes if she didn't want to go to the expense of mailings....I bet she could find positive things to put in the newsletter too, not just write about who's sick or who has died...just a thought...

I think a lot of the older crowds talk about aches and pains, deaths and divorces, bla, bla, bla, because they don't have anything else to fill their time or lonely days, most of them are retired and at the age where their friends are getting sick, the kids are all grown and have their own full lives, and they just don't have alot of activity to fill up their days...talking IS their activity. So what do they talk about? The only thing available...

Just some thoughts...

I don't think it's the older crowds who just do it. My mom does the same thing and she's only 50. There is never a phone conversation that doesn't lead to how worry she is about someone because of some medical problem. I feel bad, but sometimes I just flat out ask if there is anything good going on? She's gotten better about adding good things to the mix, but sometimes I get off the phone so depressed, I just go right to sleep.

Smile, Vicki, Dk, perhaps we marrie dbrothers and don't know it! Need I say more?

Oh, and I really like jawjaw's thoughts on this. The eternal optimist!

May all of us remember to have a life as we grow older...and think happy thoughts and share them with our loved ones.

Yes people get sick and have surgeries but we have to rise above all the mess in life and continue to see the blessings.

I'd also like to share that there are people who live with life threatening diseases and you'd mever know it.

My husband is one of those people because he lives every single day with Type I diabetes. Many of our friends don't even know he does shots, let alone as many as 4 a day. He very quietly disappears and does blood tests and injections and people don't even know.

I admire hin...what can I say?

My mom's next door neighbor is another one who likes to talk about illness, but only her own. While my mom is in the nursing home, weighing 70 lbs. and not sure what the future holds or whether she has one, yet she's still laughing and joking with people, her neighbor sends her a Christmas card saying "Hope you're doing okay. I've had a terrible sinus infection..." We had to laugh.